Pete Mitchell, environmental analyst, Watershed Planning Program, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection

New England is blessed with an abundance of fresh water. Pete Mitchell, environmental analyst and 20-year veteran of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, is tasked with measuring the effects of human activity, as well as natural phenomena on a lot of that water. His team, the Watershed Planning Program, concerns itself largely with answering high-level questions about the health of bodies of freshwater.

Mitchell, who has a master’s degree in English as well as in fisheries biology, did his thesis in mercury bioaccumulation within watersheds.

“I was taking a biological approach to it via my real love, which is macroinvertebrates — waterbugs,” Mitchell says.

He explains that bugs tell you more than chemistry or fish will. Bugs stay put.

 From eggs to adulthood, bugs will stay in a 100- to 500-meter stretch of river or along the banks of a wetland or lake. Fish don’t, making it difficult to trace the source of a contaminant if the fish is miles from its birthplace.

With winter weather coming, another focus for biologists like Mitchell is the road salt that’s used to melt icy patches of road to make driving safer, but eventually makes its way into the water.

“We’re finding that sodium is supplanting the calcium in the cellular function, and that’s not good,” Mitchell says. “In terms of fish, it’s really screwing up their gills. They can’t transfer oxygen from the water with sodium chloride into the blood system.”

He explains, optimistically, that some municipalities in other states are experimenting with using brine (salt water) sprayers on their trucks rather than salt spreaders. In addition to preserving aquatic life, towns are discovering that if they pre-treat the roads with brine, the effectiveness is immediate, and they tend to use far less salt in the course of a winter.

In addition to a general improvement in water quality in Massachusetts in recent years, new tools are making data gathering simpler and more accurate. Mitchell notes, though, that all the cool tech in the world can’t take the place of public understanding of the threats to our freshwater bodies and willingness to be aggressive about stewardship.

“There’s a finite amount of potable drinking water sources in the Commonwealth,” advises Mitchell. “Our development has to be low impact. It is far easier, and more cost effective, to protect your resources than to remediate your resources. It is often the case that you can’t even remediate a contaminated source. Then you have to go looking for a new one. So, it’s all about protection. It’s all about protecting that resource for the benefit of all citizens.”